Quantrix a quiet presence in stimulus efforts

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A software company in Portland is playing a small but supportive role in the nationwide grab for stimulus funds. Quantrix, an eight-year-old company that develops analysis tools, is partnering with a Georgia consulting firm to speed along applications for money to boost broadband.

Software developed by Quantrix has allowed technology consulting company Civitium to help clients apply for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds earmarked for broadband development. "Quantrix has become instrumental with the work we're doing helping co-ops, economic development agencies and governments apply for stimulus funds," Civitium Senior Partner Baily White says.

Civitium helped five agencies in Georgia, Puerto Rico and Illinois prepare grants to tap into part of the $7.2 billion included in the recovery act to help fill in broadband and wireless Internet gaps in underserved, often financially disadvantaged parts of the country. Since the money was announced, agencies and municipalities have rushed to put together complicated, multi-page grants to apply, White says.

Quantrix software helped Civitium respond to the demand by devising business models and engineering plans to explain who would build the new networks and how, a "rigorous engineering process" that in some cases means analyzing a 1,400-square-mile network down to the square foot, White says. "We define all the routes the network would take, what streets, what intersections and what it would all cost."

Quantrix software helped integrate all those variables, connecting engineering details with financial details. "We have all our systems feeding into Quantrix and providing both financial and functional analysis," White says. Civitium will find out in December whether the projects will receive stimulus money.

Civitium is just the latest partnership Quantrix has sealed, which currently has 16 "reseller and consulting" partners in 14 countries. Recently the company has more aggressively pursued partnership opportunities, adding five new partners just this past year. "[Partners] often have strong domain expertise and credibility with an extensive customer base," Quantrix Marketing Director David Phillips writes in an e-mail. "They are able to introduce Quantrix into organizations that we otherwise might not reach."

Civitium had been using Quantrix software for about six months, White says, before recently deciding to become a company partner, which entails it to a cut of any Quantrix product it sells and gives the company greater access to marketing and sales support from Quantrix. Quantrix sells its software in packages ranging from $329 to $1,275.

For Quantrix, partnerships not only generate additional licensing and maintenance revenue from new clients, but more intangibly, they also tend to spur creativity. "Partners provide feedback for new features and ways to improve our product offerings," Phillips writes.